Blogs

This is the third in our series of briefings on the USAN-sponsored report, “Extreme Engagement in the Multichannel Contact Center” by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI).  Previously we noted the de facto presence of multichannels in everyone’s business strategies, and we summarized the alternatives - adjuncts really - to the traditional inbound telephone customer...

Customers have more options in seeking out services and products, and contact centers need to leverage those options. According to the USAN-sponsored report by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), “Extreme Engagement in the Multichannel Contact Center,” those options are the traditional as well as new portals (and exits) to “already crowded contact centers.” The...

According to the USAN-sponsored report by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), “Extreme Engagement in the Multichannel Contact Center,” when it comes to receiving service, not surprisingly a plurality of customers (38 percent) ranked “speaking directly to a phone agent” as their top preference. What came in second? It was web self-service, at just over...

If you think you're scared of performing personal pharmacy or credit card transactions in the cloud, imagine the concerns of business managers when it comes to security and government regulatory compliance. In fact, according to our newest whitepaper “Call center compliance in the Cloud,” many businesses avoid the problem altogether: To address (compliance) concerns, businesses...

Walk into any call center during a high-volume call period and listen to the reps handling the random calls. It all seems rather chaotic, but there is a pattern that, with the help of computers, breaks down into a predictability that allows managers to: accurately forecast, schedule and staff the call center to deal with...

If utilities customer engagement consisted of just stuffing a utilities bill envelope with a brochure on energy savings, then every energy company in the world could claim it is truly customer centric. Unfortunately, according to a Renew Grid piece, there’s more to it than that. Further, according to an annual survey by Accenture, a global...

If your call center is the “golden gate” to your business, then yours may be one of those businesses that can’t wait to move to the cloud. You’re probably hankering to free yourself from the tethers of hardware maintenance and the middle-age spread of numerous business applications and systems that have grown less and less...

Join USAN at the CCNG Optimizing the Contact Center/Call Center event on Thursday, August 22 to uncover the secrets of the best contact centers and find out how to apply them in your organization!  We'll reveal new contact center optimization solutions that are now accessible and affordable to organizations of all sizes.  You'll learn breakthrough strategies...

The laws that affect contact centers have become overwhelming. Business owners frequently lose sleep over the complicated and ever changing regulatory environment. Enforcement actions and penalties are increasing exponentially, not to mention the onslaught of class action lawsuits. This is one area where ignorance is not bliss. Obtain the information that will allow you to...

We've all heard that recording while we're waiting for an agent to pick up our call: "This call will be recorded for quality control." Sure, the call will be recorded, but is anyone ever going to play it back and actually use it for anything other than troubleshooting some unfortunate incident that soured some customer...

Automating customer service for utilities providers can do a lot more than just save on costs. It's a service that reaches out to the customer with a busy schedule and little time, allowing that customer the ability to access important information without waiting in a queue to speak to a representative. Although you may worry...

In the context of call center management, workforce management (WFM) is both a residual and inherent benefit of automating the whole process. The calls come in and go up on the rep’s scoreboard and the stats don’t lie. They are what they are and you use them to reward, motivate or penalize call center performers....

Think for a minute about the goal you want to achieve with your interactive voice response - IVR system. Are you trying to process calls as quickly as possible? Or limit the number of calls that go to a live customer service agent? If you answered yes to either of these questions, we have news...

The problem with the average “good idea” is translating the idea to action and harnessing the limited resources in between. One good idea is proactive outreach (using automated outbound voice with an IVR system integrated with an automated dialer) to a known satisfied customer. That customer bought your product or service, and you took the...

What’s all this about “multi-channel”? If you like visual explanations, think of multi-channel customer self service as a center circle surrounded by smaller, orbiting circles. That center circle would be your call center portal. Those orbiting circles would be your customers’ channels. A channel is the platform (or means) your customers use to find, contact...

You may have heard this one: The galley slavemaster tells his crew that he has both good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone is getting an extra ration of hand cream. The bad news is that the ship’s captain has decided to take up water skiing. The rowers in this classic...

Sometimes ridiculed as both a maze and a labyrinth, interactive voice response (IVR) systems have been easy targets of cheap shots. Everybody has their own memory of a bad experience with an IVR that typically started with “Si usted habla español, oprima número uno” and ended three minutes later with this message: “To contact a...

IVR is the abbreviation for interactive voice response, but the first two letters could also signify an injection of new life into your customers’ experience - as in a medical IV.  How are your customers going to connect with a well-designed IVR system? Let us count the ways: 1. Efficient Call Routing The built-in call...

UPDATE: This article was also published in the ICMI blog If we accept the premise that happy call center agents make for happy customers, we have to agree on at least one of our definitions. We pretty much know what makes for happy customers, because they either tell us in so many words, or show...

If you’re running an on-premise contact center and your computer support equipment is beginning to age a bit, you may be at a decision crossroads: Should you shell out the big bucks for new hardware? While you’re at it, what about the great new integrated customer management technology that everyone has been telling you about?...